The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, CBC, has a program called Canada Reads which runs for four days every year on radio and television. The program features five Canadians, each of whom champions a book by a Canadian author. The French division of the broadcaster runs the series for French language books as well.
Every year, our book club members are among the many Canadians who enjoy the series featuring debate about which of the books best exemplifies a theme for the year. The winning book is judged to be one which all Canadians should read. This year's Canada Reads occurred last week with the theme Starting Over.
The books discussed by the panelists this year were
Minister Without Portfolio by Michael Winter,
Bone and Bread by Saleema Narwaz,
Birdie by Tracey Lindberg,
The Hero's Walk by Anita Rau Badami,
The Illegal by Lawrence Hill.
The selection of books reflects the multi-cultural nature of Canada and the breadth of literary talent in the country.
The program is unique in its focus on Canadian books and has done much to promote Canadian literature in the last fifteen years on the air. It is great to hear books discussed on air and elsewhere during the series. Every year, I, along with many others, purchase or borrow and read the books featured.
The winner of Canada Reads this year was The Illegal by Lawrence Hill. I am working my way through the books and enjoying them, saving The Illegal for last.
12 comments:
Oh, good reads for me, even if I'm not Canadian. I'll go put them on my library hold list right now! Thank you! :-)
oh no, this is the second time of writing this.... lost the first comment.
I finished reading The Illegal on the day that it was chosen as winner of Canada Reads. I am putting the other books on my MUST READ SOON list, especially the one by Michael Winter, I have read all his other books.
I became discouraged with this years ago, when I purchased the top two books and was disappointed by them. I should probably give it another try someday.
Enjoy!
I love Minister Without Portfolio but it took a few pages to get into it. It made me want to visit home.
I don't always love every book but I always get something out of them. I like meeting new authors too.
I couldn't get through Lawrence Hill's last book that won (The Book of Negroes) but I enjoyed the mini-series that CBC made out of it.
Over the years, I have enjoyed various Canadian/Canadien writers. Thanks for sharing this list.
Thank you so much. :)
I was the opposite, Deb. I read the book but couldn't watch the images in the series.
Hope you like them.
Enjoy, Mage.
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